Google has been teasing some updates for Chrome that should make the web a little bit less annoying. One of which, is to mute autoplay videos.
This should please anyone that love to surf the web. With many websites providing videos, many of them just start playing their video as soon as visitors arrive.
To some, this might be acceptable if not forgivable, but to most, it's just plain irritating. With the ability to mute, users can mute autoplay videos with sounds across a whole website with just a couple of clicks.
The feature is available on Chrome 64 beta.
Google has previously introduced new policies that prohibit videos from autoplaying unless the sound is muted, or if there’s no sound on the clip at all. A user could still choose to play the video. This mute feature should ensure that users won't be bothered by sudden sounds that scream on their speakers.
To access it, on any page that has autoplay videos with sound, right beside the URL text field at the address bar, users should see a lower-case letter "i" or a green lock icon. Clicking on that should show a dropdown menu.
On that dropdown menu, there is a list of options. Clicking on the sound option, users can choose "always block on this site".
In addition to the mute function, the beta release of Chrome also comes with an enhanced popup blocker that helps users avoid seeing websites that are disguised as play buttons, links, and other controls.
With this feature, malicious auto-redirects should have a harder time in redirecting users to websites they never wanted to visit.
To notify users, Chrome will show a little information bar when it successfully block a redirect attempt.
Google has also created a portal for site owners, allowing the, to learn whether they are engaging to prohibited practices.
Other features introduced in the beta release include HDR video playback on Windows 10, a 'Split view' feature for Chrome OS, tweaked page resize options for developers, improved resource usage for media assets and others.
Google also acknowledges that ad-blockers are a threat to its business, and also to all ad-supported businesses on the web. Services like AdBlock Plus reportedly make money to whitelist certain advertisers. But handling ad-blocking to Google also doesn't sound like a good idea.
Google is part of the Coalition for Better Ad Standards, which has a transparent list of ad types that shouldn’t be used. While Google in insisting websites to not autoplay videos with sounds is certainly a good idea, but it's worth mentioning that Google controls most of the ad market on the web. The mute and ad-blocking feature are more like Google in showing its power over smaller websites, forcing others to do what it wants them to do.